I am planning my fish out for my 120 gallon. I will have one, maybe two groups of anthias. I want some that are easy, okay on once a day (long, hearty) feedings, and brave enough for a yellow tang and some wrasses. So, what are the prettiest anthias I can get? I've been looking at the bicolor anthias, I think they're very pretty. I would like some red saddled anthias but I cannot find them anywhere.

Thanks!

sunburst, Barletts, and blotchy are the nicest ones out there IMO.
Dispars are also nice

also the ones u mentioned are kinda on the aggressive side.

I've thought about the sunbursts but they aren't as brave as others. My mama doesn't like the blotchy anthias, although I love them. I've been thinking Barlett's or Dispars. And I hope the ones I mentioned are on the aggressive side because I want some other fish that can be kinda mean.

oh then go with the Bartlett's.

A good anthia is a dead anthia.





Kidding, I guess I would have to +1 Nate. Anthias look the best is big groups IMO

What do you think about Lyretails with one feeding a day?

they should be fine... sometimes i forget to feed my 2 anthias but they stay cool

Huh. What type of anthias do you have?

dispar and blotchy.

Which do you like better?

I will respectfully disagree with all of the above. Pseudoanthias Ventralis are by far the most beautiful. here are pictures of mine:







Also remember these are all female juvi's, so they're still not fully colored yet. The males are ridiculously amazing. Look them up.

How often do you feed them? Those are incredible. I read that they are difficult though.

LOL those pix are nice and over-saturated. good thing i took photo class this year. never woulda noticed that if i were.
nice mask job to highlight the Anthias tho.

anyways for me Bartlett's are the best. i just didnt have $$$ at the right time to buy one...
BTW blotchy anthias are pretty aggressive as well. i noticed that with mine.

You don't have to diss his picture...

Look up "Depth of field" in your photography textbook. You might also be interested in "focal point".

hmm.. i was thinking that until i noticed how precise the anthias were outlined.

sorry but i just dont like oversaturated pix.... and yes. they are a pretty deep purple (i looked em up) but definitely not neon IMO.

Not tryina dis anything. those anthias look awesome.

PS i was honestly saying good mask job...its real hard to do that.

I'd love to get an anthias someday... I'm a fan of the male lyretail anthias. I was contemplating one for a 40br, but I think it would be too much work.

Check this link on anthias schoals

I'm leaning towards the lyretail too. That link was very helpful by the way, thanks a bunch.

Haha you think you are so hot sh!t with your photographic jargon aren't you? Masking? OVersaturated? yay, ok so don't get these anthias then. You are laughable.

What the hell is a mask job? Tell me. Do you know what depth of field is? Do you know what aperture does? Do you know? Do you know anything at all? Or are you one of those kind of people who hears about one thing, and decides you are totally in the know about exactly how everything is done? Sorry for all the questions, but I can tell how you think, and it's despicable. You should get rid of your immaturity and useless tendency of shutting out feedback when it comes to any kind of topic.

I feel really sorry for you. You think you are so and once you have rationalized how much you know about one subject, you cannot even fathom the world of information and possibility outside of your little head.

Great, oversaturate, and mask. You are missing out in life my friend if that's all you think is true. I can't even imagine the things your missing because you dismiss the amazing aspects of life to manufactured trickery. You have no sense of how the world works, even less than the average person, because you live in a fantasy land where everything is brown and hackney.

There are also those who do not have enough capacity in their brains to absorb anymore. To keep themselves from freaking out because of how much they don't know, and their complete obsessive desire to be better than others by knowing more, they shut it all out and pretend that the world works exactly as they see it.

Cheers to you my friend, I feel sorry for your ignorance.

Both of you get off my thread before I have to report this... I didn't make this thread for you two to flame. No offence to you guys.

Anyway, what ever you get you should have a harem, one alone looks boring IMO, and you will have a tank big enough for it

i already said i didnt mean to dis anything or anyone. dunno why your comming back at me like that.


anyways +1 on the harem idea

Yeah that's what I'm doing. I just wish there were no fish stocking limits. I'm thinking 3-4 lyretails a trio of sunbursts and a trio of blotched anthias. But that's lots of fish to go with my yellow tang, two clownfish, 2 firefish, yasha goby, midas blenny, and other cool fish I'm planning. But I'll think about that stuff later.

thats gonna cost you a lot if you dont have a hookup....

Is 100 each a hook-up? I know that's alot but I'll think about that later.

i think purple anthias look cool. i like dispars too. For $20 a pop, I don't think you can go wrong with dispars.

I might stick with just one species in a decently large group, or do pairs/triplets of two species. 120 gallons is a lot smaller than it seems. A way to work around feeding just once a day is to get the fish eating pellets then set up a feeding at some other time, well-spaced, with an automatic feeder.

I had a school of lyretial anthias that succumbed to ich, but now I have a single square anthias male, and he is soooo beautiful, a great eater, and always out and about even with 2 giant tangs 2 clowns and a wrasse!

I didn't know they were so cheap. I will take a look at them.



I'm probably going to do one group of 4 anthias. I was thinking about that automatic feeder and I just don't really feel like it.... If it comes to it I will though. I'll stick to the easier anthias. I found a new LFS and if you buy the fish he will keep it for like 2 weeks and make sure it eats and is healthy before he gives it to me.



I saw the square anthia yesterday and it was beautiful, but the females didn't look so great. How often do you feed it? And why did the lyretails get ich?

frist i must say that im lookin at a trio of lyretail anthias and a sunburst anthias but after this thread i might also be lookin at the dispar anthias. Also my lfs told me that he has a sunburst and after about a year it was fully acclimated and came out often, even during the day, but if you add it as one of the first fish in the tank it will acclimate quicker.

I'm definitely leaning toward the lyretails too. The sunbursts are too timid. I've never seen the dispar in real life and all anthias seem to be prettier at the fish store...

yea I would like to get a couple for my tank but its a 34g solana

Upgrade yo.

yea females aren't as colorful, but I plan to only have the male anyways, but they are a larger anthias so you can't really have as many, I feed once a day to every other day, and my tank had an ich outbreak a while back when i was first getting started out and it wiped out my naso and school of 5 anthias and a blue tang =( but all is well now =)

If you are planning on keeping any Pseudanthias spp. with one feeding per day I will humbly submit to you that they will not live very long at all. Missing a day here and there, or feeding only once per day on a busy day now and then will not do them any harm, but these guys need 2 times per day minimum feedings on average, and that is just barely enough to keep them alive long term. Please listen to people who have had their anthias get fat, change sex, spawn, and live for years...not the folks who got a few last month and say they're "doing fine" on pellets and flake food a few times a week.

Lyretails are hardy and easy to feed, and a good starter anthias if you've never kept them before. Unfortunately the "prettiest" anthias are almost always the toughest to keep.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-09/hcs3/index.php
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-12/hcs3/index.php

Hey John, the purple queens are one of my favorite fish. Sucks that they are so damn hard to acclimate to eating. I wrote an article on P. tuka that will be in the next issue of Reef Life magazine.

ive kept my Dispar anthia for about 6 months on daily feedings of at least a handful of pellets and every other day of pellets + arcti-pods and he is a very active fish. he seems to like to school with my chromis and yellowtail fusilier but when he was first introduced to the tank he hung out with my blotch anthia and i think the blotchy actually helped him to start eating.

Thank you. I don't want to put anything in my aquarium with that much of a risk. I can live without a school of anthias. I am thinking some helfrich's firefish. A trio, maybe?

Bravo on knowing your limits. This is exactly why I'm not getting one. I know my habits and I miss feedings quite often! I also go on weekend trips and such a lot.

firefish should be kept alone or in pairs, though a group may survive in a 120. However, dartfish from the genus Ptereleotris are much better choices for having groups.

Ditto. P. zebra are really cool fish, easy to keep, and make some stunning sexual displays if you keep them in groups and feed them really frequently so they can mature into full blown males and females.

This is what the males look like when they're impressing the ladies:

Ptereleotris heteroptera also has great color, almost a neon blue under aquarium lights.

I was at somebody's house and he has had some lyretail anthias for about 6 months on one feeding a day. I know some fish stores and people say they have to have at least 2 feedings a day but I know lots of people who feed theirs once a day, including one of my LFS's who feeds his display bicolor anthias once a day, and he's had them for a long time. So if I CAN keep anthias I probably will. Anybody have any experience with anthias?

6 months? Know anybody who has had their anthias for 4 or 5 years? Can we see photos of these fish?

I have a quad of Lyretail Anthias arriving tomorrow from Liveaquaria. I'm excited, I've always wanted anthias. From what I've read lyretails are about the toughest and have the least number of negative traits associated with anthias. Did I mention I'm excited?

For the record, I'll be feeding them twice a day. Probably 3 times a day for the first few weeks.

*PLEASE* listen to wombat! He knows of what he speaks.

I have owned them and kept them longer than six months. I ended up giving most of mine away because it was such a PITA to take care of them. Others I lost in a massive tank crash. These guys are a very high maintenance fish.

You absolutely *MUST* feed them more than once per day *UNLESS* your tank is chock full of pods and other zooplankton that they can feed on. Otherwise they will either become very aggressive (Barletts, Lyertails, or Dispars) towards *ANY* fish that they see as competition for food and/or slowly become malnourished and die. My male Bartletts would regularly try to beat on every other fish in the tank during feeding time because he saw them as competition.

As to specific species...

Blotchies look like skin cancer patients when they grow up and if you have more than one don't expect to for long after one or both reaches sexual maturity.

Queen's aka Purple's rarely can be made to eat anything other than live food if they eat at all

If you do decide to do this look at an autofeeder, getting a species that will do well on flake/pellet (Bartletts, Lyretail or Dispar), get a group of at least 6 juvenile/young females and let them sort out who becomes the male, get a skimmer that is rated for a tank at least 3 sizes bigger than yours, and plan on feeding at least twice if not three times per day.

Alright, thanks. I won't be doing anthias.

if you wanna see the prettiest anthia, but not put it in your tank, go here;
http://www.reefbuilders.com/2009/11/19/pse...p-diving-video/

wow these are such beautiful fish...is their type that could work with a 40 breeder?

Sunbursts.